If I could get over my distaste for online multiplayer, and play XIV in solo mode, perhaps I would know. Just no desire at this point. I can give the soundtrack a bop though, since you suggested it!

But WHICH Final Fantasy soundtracks!? Anything past X-2 just does nothing for me.

A few thoughts as an erstwhile New Yorker:

Agreed. The Warner Discovery megamerger is going to cut all content that does not specifically pander to middle America, and it is already a sh*tshow. If their new CEO gets his way, it will be nothing but cheaply filmed Chip and Joanna all day, every day, instead of diverse, unique content that takes actual dollars to…

Do I smile every time I see a clip of Brown doing anything? Yes.

Not gonna lie, Barrett is far creepier than Gorsuch and Kavanope. I often think of the Yeerks from Animorphs possibly inhabiting the likes of Barrett, McConnell, and their ilk.

Oh. He drank the Koolade and now wants to sell it with that Hustler’s University BS. Color me not surprised, but very worried at the same time.

I am glad your sister got out in front of Tate and his BS with her kids. That is HUGE. I know my mom will call my brother out on this nonsense, and that he will kick and scream about how he, a young, straight, white male is the *real victim* in this equation.

Our father knows better than to even suggest anything to my brother, because my brother’s inner contrarian will just move in a vastly different and probably not even opposite direction. He knows that if he would have called him out on this Tate guy, that he would have doubled down on it even harder. My father is a…

I think those types ingest all that filth and nonsense *just* to get reactions at events like Christmas dinner like you describe. A few years ago, an uncle of mine went on a rant and said, “We conquered the natives, why allow them to have reservations or any land?” Like.....dude, what inhuman asshat has a bone to pick…

Me too, bb. At a loss as to how I would even begin to help. 

Best I can hope for is that my brother fails hard and makes up with his gf. She always balanced out his BS, and while I do not want her to put up with his nonsense, I can’t think of anyone who would care enough to deprogram this out of his system, and help take care of his girls. I will always think of her and her son…

He always has been a follower of the most contrarian things. It is only recently that the things are so dangerous, but whewwww did that escalate quickly. 

My brother and the guy you describe have stunning parallels. He refused to get vaxxed, or to get his kids vaccinated, and still insists that the pandemic is a political invention. It makes me furious just thinking about it now, after he willingly puts himself and my nieces in harm’s way, not to mention everyone he…

Yeah, I just want them to do well in school, and escape to college. I need the older one to avoid boys like the plague, decide she wants to escape, and then the younger one will want to follow her big sister’s lead. Cannot have them get pregnant at 16 like their mother. Lord!

Yeeeeesh. You are right. Shit is scary as hell, and I am glad at least his ex-gf and her son are safe. I adored her, and they were a good match up until my brother ingested Tate’s BS and he got awful big for his britches. She did not need such a weak-minded match, and her son (who I presume is gay) did not need my…

My nieces seem acutely aware that their mother and the state of Utah just want them to become baby ovens once they hit 15. I know they will both outsmart my brother, and escape this petit Gilead. Having them sent to their mother would be even more caustic than them rolling their eyes at my brother frothing with the…

I forgot to mention that he uprooted his girls from their comfy west coast lifestyle to move to Utah to be closer to their Mormon mother. Cult is not even the word.

Sadly, their mother is even worse than he is. She’s Mormon and thinks it is her duty to basically marry her girls off and make sure they procreate by 15/16 like she did. Her stance is disgusting, to put it mildly, and I wish my nieces were not trapped in Utah until they can run off to college elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, many may be primed for hate, perhaps because of genetic memory. Or perhaps because our technology and our interconnectedness are evolving faster than most minds can fathom. Our propensity for Othering is the root of hate, and ignorance is simply the fertilizer that grows it into a deadly, thorny tree.